


before i go

by TylahJayne



Category: Homestuck
Genre: DO YOU WANT TO SEE ALL YOUR MISSNG FAVS HAPPY?? WELL SO DO I, Multi, THIS IS A FEEL GOOD FIC BC MY FEELS ARE HURTING, Upd8 fic, dave-centred, so I wrote this, technically canon compliant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-14
Updated: 2016-04-14
Packaged: 2018-06-02 04:08:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6550153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TylahJayne/pseuds/TylahJayne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is Dave Strider, and although you have just won the game you and your friends have been playing for over three years, you know your journey isn't over yet.</p>
<p>Though the door is open, and you’ve won, there is still more to be done.</p>
<p>You can’t go through the door yet, and you’re not completely sure if you ever will. You can’t leave without her, and you know others are fretting about missing comrades. You are the only one who could successfully stay behind.</p>
<p>You’ve made your choice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Your name is Dave Strider, and although you have just won the game you and your friends have been playing for over three years, you know your journey isn't over yet.

Though the door is open, and you’ve won, there is still more to be done.

You can’t go through the door yet, and you’re not completely sure if you ever will. You can’t leave without her, and you know others are fretting about missing comrades. You are the only one who could successfully stay behind.

You’ve made your choice.

“I’m not going. I still have shit to do, people to see.” You say coldly, not letting the shake in your voice be heard. You are a time player, you embody your aspect and you will be strong.

“No Dave you can’t! We just won! We have to leave, there’s our new universe right in front of us, there’s nothing else to do here! It’s over!” You knew John wouldn’t understand, and you try not close your cool.

“There’s still people out there Egbert, can’t just leave them behind. If I did that, I wouldn’t the totally awesome rad dude I am now. That shits sacrilegious, that’s some straight Judas betraying Jesus shit right there. Wouldn’t wanna be that dude.” You reply, hiding the shake in your hands. You must be strong.

“Dave, John’s right. They’re probably dead. There’s no point! Let’s just move on. We won, we deserve it.” Jade never really understood how to act around people, so you let the brashness of her statement slide.

“Brother I must agree with John and Jade here, I can see no outcome where you don’t follow us though the door. Therefore, you must. Our time here is over Dave, we must move on.” Rose’s words are a mental slap to the face, and its taking all of your meagre will power not to scream at her.

“No.  I won’t. I don’t care what you see. There’s people out there I promised to protect, and if they don’t get to see the new universe than I don’t want any fucking part of it. Do you hear me? I refuse to pass through that fucking door unless they’re by my side, so shove your fucking seer powers up your ass and all of you get it through your thick heads that you can’t control me. I’m not a dog, you can’t tell me what to do. This is my fucking choice and I choose to stay here.”

You don’t know when Jade had moved, but suddenly she was in front of you, and she was knocking you off your feet with a swift punch to the jaw. It hurt like hell, but you were used to it. Standing back up, you spit the blood out of your mouth that was oozing out of your now split lip. Looking past her, you could see John starting to cry. Rose was glaring at you. Jade was seething.

You took a few steps back, because Jade was still in your personal space and it was starting to get to you. Suddenly, someone was standing beside you, checking your lip. You were surprised to find it was Dirk. “Damn Harley you’ve got a good right hook, but in all seriousness. Dave can do what he wants. As much as you want to force him to go through that door, you can’t. Dave is his own person, and obviously, there’s someone special to him out there. You can’t fault him for wanting to wait for them.”

Roxy’s hand was suddenly on our opposite shoulder. “Dirk’s right and he learned that lesson the hard way. We’ve all seen what happens when you turn people into puppets. It doesn’t end well.” It warmed your heart to know that they understood.

“It’s Aradia, she’s out there. I know she is. So is Vriska, and Gamzee, and Sollux, and Davepeta, and Japrose, and whatever sprite Tavros got himself mixed into and I need to find out what’s going to happen to all of the ghosts, and if there’s a way to save them after the session is destroyed. I cant just leave them all. It’d be killing them.” You said it loud enough for almost everyone to hear, but not loud enough for it to sound threatening.

It’d been a long time since you’d gone against John, but this time it was different. It wasn’t just your life you were risking. It was the lives of dozens of people. People who deserved to live.

John was crying harder now, Rose still didn’t look happy, but her face had softened. Jade looked lost, as if she didn’t know how to respond. Terezi and Karkat had tears in their eyes that were starting to fall, and you think somewhere deep down they knew that you were staying for them as much as you were staying for yourself.

Kanaya smiled at you, and you think she knew you were going to stay even before you did. Though you didn’t know much about Jane and Jake, you understood that if Dirk and Roxy stood behind you, that they would too.

It was the end of the discussion, you were staying, and the others would go. You hugged John, Rose and Jade before they went through, it was hard to say goodbye but you did. John cried some more, and you think you even saw a tear in Rose’s eye. Jade was a mess, she was angry, but she was mostly sad. They didn’t argue anymore, but you knew that they’d never understand the way the others did. You also hugged Dirk and Roxy, and gave them your thanks. Jane and Jake got hugs too although they were more tense, and you wished them well.

Your goodbyes to the trolls where messy. Terezi kissed you, and then called you a bastard before hugging you and thanking you. Karkat was crying and yelling at you to bring his boys home safe, he punched you in the arm, but it wasn’t very hard. You hugged him tight, and told him you’d do your best. Kanaya kissed both your cheeks, and told you to stay safe.

Calliope gave you a hug, and wished the best, before asking what your plan was. “Well I’m going to freeze time just after all of you fuckers leave, and I’m going to go on a fucking adventure, it’s gonna be like the fucking magic school bus and shit apart from the fact that I don’t have a bus or a miss frizzle.” She gaped at you, before laughing.

“I have no idea what that even means, but good luck. I’m sure you will succeed.” Was all she said before taking up her spot next to Roxy again.

After that, there were no more goodbyes to make, and they started going through the door. You knew that it wouldn’t disappear unless you went in it, but you could see some of the dream bubbles starting to shrink on the horizon, and that the far off black hole wasn’t helping things.

So you froze it. All of it. It wasn’t hard, and excluding people from your freezing wasn’t very hard, you just had to concentrate, so you did, and soon it was all frozen.

Then the reality started to set in that you were alone.

Nevertheless, you had a mission.

A goal.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You have no idea where to start.   
> Well that’s a lie, you had an obvious place to start, and it was more of a problem that you had no idea where to find the start.   
> You jumped off the side of the platform, no time like the present to start looking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im sorry this whole thing just turned into have monolouging and reflecting. oh and did i say this was a feel good fic? well apparently i lied bc dave wants to make me feel sad

You have no idea where to start.

Well that’s a lie, you had an obvious place to start, and it was more of a problem that you had no idea where to find the start.

You jumped off the side of the platform, no time like the present to start looking.

You had a knack for knowing the exact time of day it was, and even thought it was pretty much pitch black, you still knew the time. It was weird, since there was technically no sun to shed light on everything. You also had a feeling you knew exactly where your overdramatic-at-times moirail was.

There was no doubt in your mind that she was right on the front line laughing as the world burned, there was a reason you loved her. There was so many people you needed to find, a lot of them that you didn’t even know if they were alive, but you’d look. Just after you track down Aradia and cry into her shirt like old times.

It’d been at least an hour, you could still see the platform off in the distance, but everything around you was frozen. God you hated using your time powers, but Aradia had sat you down a long time ago and talked you through it.

It was quiet, and you relished in that. It hadn’t been this quiet in so long. There’d always been some kind of noise, in Texas it was cars and birds and your brother crashing around the apartment. Then on your land, it had been so loud you thought you’d go deaf at some points. On Derse, there had always been the chess people blabbering on and on and you could hear the horrorterrors singing. Then on the meteor there had been the strange honks and the unexplained gear sounds, which you’re almost certain weren’t actually there, and if it was quiet enough you could always hear the remnants of the horrorterrors song in your ears and if you focused long enough it would drive you insane.

It was refreshing, if you ignored the horrorterrors song playing at the back of your mind. You wondered if the other Derse dreams had to put up with this problem. You decided not to worry about it, and continue along on your very important quest. You were to find the lady and her court, or some other ironic shit you’d spun in your mind. It could take you days to find them all, or it could take you months. You didn’t know, but what you did know was that time in the session flowed much slower than that in the new universe, so you could be gone for years. You hoped that that wasn’t the case.

You take this time to think back. Even though you were on the meteor for three years, you never really thought about everything. It was always about keeping busy to stop yourself from falling even deeper into the hole of self-loathing you’d previously dug yourself into. You’d always been on the move since you entered the game. There was always something to do, but now here you are. Surrounded by the nothingness, all alone, trying to find lost friends and lovers after the most terrifying experience of your life.

At the start of the game, you’d treated it as such. It was just a game, nothing to take seriously, but when you’d found your brother dead, some sick part of you had felt happy, and other parts where screaming at you because everything you thought you had was a lie. Rose had taught you so much in those first few months, when you were trying to get over the constant screeching of gears and trying to learn to handle being around Davesprite. You never hated him, no matter what no one thought. You were scared, just like he was. You were scarred that he’d take your place, and he was scarred that people would never see him as his own person.

You were both idiots. You were fucking stupid and nothing will ever make up for the way you treated him and what you said. You just hope that once you found Davepeta, that you’d at least be able to apologise to apart of them, and that for what it’s worth, that he forgave you.

You were terrified when you died on your slab, even though you’d died a hundred times before. You were terrified because Rose was with you and you didn’t want her to hurt. In the end you were glad she came with you, because after that you think she understood what you felt like near constantly, knowing the exact moment when you’d need to jump back and take a bullet or a sword for whoever needed it. You think you loved Rose once.

The meteor was hell. The hallways always echoed, and you needed to be with someone almost constantly. Everything was tense and you were scared. Scared for John and for Jade and on some level you were scared about Davesprite and what would happen. You were terrified of what would happen when you got to the session because you knew that a young version of your bro would be there, and you still felt sick about how happy you were when your version of him died.

You took off your shades, they were practically worthless right now anyways, and put them into your sylladex. You didn’t need them, because it was dark and you had nothing to hide. If you were going to look for Aradia, you were going to do it with your heart on your shoulder and your eyes on the prize.

You don’t want to find anyone else but Aradia first, so you head for the place no one else would be crazy enough to go. She has always told you that she wanted to see what happens when this god-forsaken place breaks at the seams. So you headed to the black hole, which was in the middle of consuming the green sun. Everything was still frozen, so you guessed that she either knew that you were coming for her, or maybe that the world was broken completely.

You had a strong feeling that the first was more accurate. If there was anything Aradia wasn’t, it was stupid. You took a few moments to think back on your relationship with Aradia. She had been the one to approach you, on the meteor. For a long time you hadn’t understood what it meant to be her moirail, and you pinpoint the exact time where it all fell into place.

You were both large threats, to yourselves and to the people around you. Time players where like bombs, except no one could tell when you were going to go off. You had met Aradia’s dancestor a few times, and while she was fucking nuts, you had understood her. She wasn’t all that bad really, just a bit rough around the edges, just like Aradia. Of course, there was the other time player in this session, Lord English. It was obvious why he was a problem. You didn’t dwell on him though.

You’d loved many people; each had their own stories and a place in your heart, no matter how hard you tried to close yourself off. It terrified you. You’d never had people this close to you. At least when they were words on a screen, you could choose the where and the when, but in person, it was unpredictable.

You sighed, you had a feeling it was going to be a long day.

**Author's Note:**

> the end of hs rly fucked me up.


End file.
